ProShare Advisors LLC Purchases 8,703 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

ProShare Advisors LLC lifted its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 6.4% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 145,395 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 8,703 shares during the period. ProShare Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $51,149,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.7% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,394,657 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $21,246,236,000 after buying an additional 392,183 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.0% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 13,528,348 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,750,021,000 after buying an additional 136,665 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its position in Accenture by 16.8% during the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 12,295,748 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,325,526,000 after purchasing an additional 1,770,024 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in Accenture by 22.8% during the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 12,175,518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,283,225,000 after purchasing an additional 2,260,740 shares during the period. Finally, Capital International Investors lifted its position in Accenture by 2.2% during the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 8,513,140 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,994,922,000 after purchasing an additional 181,449 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total transaction of $47,641.10. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,364 shares in the company, valued at $1,512,111.60. This trade represents a 3.05% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.63, for a total transaction of $643,242.92. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 9,965 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,806,442.95. This trade represents a 18.65% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 8,516 shares of company stock worth $2,507,366 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN opened at $323.17 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $202.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.11, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.35. The company has a fifty day moving average of $302.81 and a 200 day moving average of $341.53. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $275.01 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.77 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th were given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.83%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 48.89%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 17th. UBS Group reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $455.00 to $387.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 21st. BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on shares of Accenture to $355.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 26th. Barclays reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $415.00 to $390.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, March 24th. Finally, Guggenheim reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, March 21st. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $381.76.

Accenture Profile

Accenture plc, a professional services company, provides strategy and consulting, industry X, song, and technology and operation services worldwide. The company offers application services, including agile transformation, DevOps, application modernization, enterprise architecture, software and quality engineering, data management; intelligent automation comprising robotic process automation, natural language processing, and virtual agents; and application management services, as well as software engineering services; strategy and consulting services; data and analytics strategy, data discovery and augmentation, data management and beyond, data democratization, and industrialized solutions comprising turnkey analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions; metaverse; and sustainability services.